Components of Web 2.0

The term Web 2.0 is associated with web applications that facilitate interactive systemic biases, interoperability, user-centered design, and developing the World Wide Web. In very simple term, it allows users to interact and collaborate with each other via internet enabled social medium or in other words it is ‘Read/Write Web’. Some of the examples of Web 2.0 include social networking sites, blogs, wikis, video sharing sites, hosted services, web applications, mashups and folksonomies. In this article we are going to discuss about all of these interesting and hugely popular techniques.

Social Networking Websites :- A social network service is an online service, platform, or site that focuses on building and reflecting of social networks or social relations among people, e.g., who share interests and/or activities. A social network service essentially consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his/her social links, and a variety of additional services. Most social network services are web based and provide means for users to interact over the internet, such as e-mail and instant messaging. Some of the popular social networking websites are Hi5, Facebook, Orkut, Friendster, LinkedIn, Twitter among many others. Although some of the largest social networks were founded on the notion of digitizing real world connections, many networks focus on categories from books and music to non-profit business to motherhood as ways to provide both services and community to individuals with shared interests.

Blogs: - A blog (a blend of the term web log) is a type of website or part of a website. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Most blogs are interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments and even message each other via widgets on the blogs and it is this interactivity that distinguishes them from other static websites. There are many different types of blogs, differing not only in the type of content, but also in the way that content is delivered or written. These can be  Personal blogs, Corporate and organizational blogs, by genre (political blogs, travel blogs (also known as travelogs), house blogs, fashion blogs, project blogs, education blogs, niche blogs, classical music blogs, quizzing blogs and legal blogs (often referred to as a blawgs) or dreamlogs), by media type (vlog, sketchlog, linklog, photologs), by device (moblog,). Now a day’s customer generated advertisements can also be incorporated in the blog. Among the various forms of advertising on blog, the most controversial are the sponsored posts. These are blog entries or posts and may be in the form of feedbacks, reviews, opinion, videos, etc. and usually contain a link back to the desired site using a keyword/s.

Wikis: - A wiki is a website that allows the creation and editing of any number of interlinked web pages via a web browser using a simplified markup language or a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) text editor. Wikis are typically powered by wiki software and are often used to create collaborative works. Examples include community websites, corporate intranets, knowledge management systems, and note services. Wikis serve different purposes. Some permit control over different functions (levels of access). For example editing rights may permit changing, adding or removing material. Others may permit access without enforcing access control. Other rules can be imposed for organizing content. However there are some issues with trustworthiness and security of wikis.

Video Sharing Sites: - Video sharing refers to websites or software where users can distribute their video clips. Some services may charge, but the large majority of video sharing sites offer their service for free. Hugely popular video sharing website is Youtube. Many services have options for private sharing and other publication options. Video sharing services can be classified into several categories, among them: user generated video sharing websites, video sharing platform / white label providers and web based video editing.

Web applications: - A web application is an application that is accessed over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. Web applications are popular due to the omnipresence of web browsers, and the convenience of using a web browser as a client, sometimes called a thin client. The ability to update and maintain web applications without distributing and installing software on potentially thousands of client computers is a key reason for their popularity. Common web applications include webmail, online retail sales, online auctions, wikis and many other functions. They offer various advantages over traditional software’s:-

• They only require compatible web browser
• Browser applications typically require little or no disk space on the client
• They require no upgrade procedure since all new features are implemented on the server and automatically delivered to the users
• Web applications integrate easily into other server-side web procedures, such as email and searching
• They also provide cross-platform compatibility in most cases (i.e., Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) because they operate within a web browser window.

Folksonomy :- A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content;^] this practice is also known as collaborative tagging, social classification, social indexing, and social tagging. Folksonomies became popular on the Web around 2004 as part of social software applications such as social bookmarking and photograph annotation. Tagging, which is one of the defining characteristics of Web 2.0 services, allows users to collectively classify and find information. Some websites include tag clouds as a way to visualize tags in a folksonomy.

Podcasts: - A podcast is a series of digital media files (either audio or video) that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication. The mode of delivery differentiates podcasting from other means of accessing media files over the Internet, such as direct download, or streamed webcasting.

RSS:- RSS (most commonly expanded as Really Simple Syndication) is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works—such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video—in a standardized format. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds. RSS allows users to avoid manually inspecting all of the websites they are interested in, and instead subscribe to websites such that all new content is pushed onto their browsers when it becomes available.